Good Shepherd Leads The Flock

June 02, 1985|Sunday Call-Chronicle

"Every cigarette shortens the habitual smoker's life by an average of 5 1/2 minutes - not much less than the time spent smoking it."

The news that the directors of Good Shepherd will prohibit smoking throughout all of the Allentown-based health-care and rehabilitation center's facilities is an enlightened decision. That it is the first such action to be taken by a Lehigh Valley hospital is certainly precedent-setti ng.

Nonetheless, the decision, coming a generation after the U.S. Surgeon General's report on the dangers of cigarette smoking to the national health, is a sad commentary on the reluctance of America's hospitals in general to act responsibly to protect patients from a verifiable health hazard by banishing that hazard from their precincts.

The unwillingness by the health-care industry to ban smoking in hospitals, and by many physicians and dentists in their waiting rooms, is disappointing in the face of the following facts:

- Cigarette-smoking is responsible for the deaths of 350,000 Americans every year.

- Smoking is a factor in more than one out of seven deaths in the nation.

- This year, for the first time, more American women will die of lung cancer than of breast cancer.

- Smoking causes 80 percent of all lung-cancer deaths and one-third of all deaths from heart disease.

- Unless there is a significant change in smoking habits, as many as 10 percent of Americans now living - about 24 million - could die prematurely of heart disease caused by smoking cigarettes.

These findings, by eminent American and British scientists, may never convince people to stop smoking - even under threat of death. The findings are disputed by the tobacco industry. However, where a substantial doubt is raised by the federal government about a product's potential lethal effect on users, it would seem prudent on the part of the medical profession and hospitals to accept that opinion until new evidence disproves it.

Good Shepherd has taken a commendable step by banning smoking in its health-care complex. It is time for other hospitals and health-care facilities throughout the Lehigh Valley to follow in this shepherd's footsteps.